News & Reviews

On 3rd October 2018, Britain's foremost artist David Hockney received the Critics' Circle award for Distinguished Service to Art. The relaxed ceremony took place over lunch at the Chelsea Arts Club, London, a beautiful venue with access through long french windows...

Mansel Stimpson writes about an Irish film that confronts truths about the bad influence that prison can have. The tone established by writer/director Frank Berry is enormously important here. Michael Inside is, as the very title suggests, a film about being in prison...

by Anna Smith, President, The Critics' Circle. When I think of Jaws, I often think of my friend Kirsten, who first saw it as a child, in hospital after having had her tonsils out. When her visiting aunt nodded off in front of the TV in her private room, she was forced...

By Anna Smith I’ve become a bit of a regular at the Royal Albert Hall’s ‘in concert’ series: it’s a certainly an impressive place to watch classic movies with a live orchestral soundtrack. Back to the Future and Amadeus raised the roof, and Raiders of the Lost Ark was...

A delayed follow-up to Winter's Bone gives Debra Granik a second triumphant drama By Mansel Stimpson It was Debra Granik's second feature, Winter's Bone of 2010, that brought stardom to Jennifer Lawrence, but that film also won enormous acclaim in its own right. Its...

Mohammed Rouda discusses five recent films about the Syrian War It is natural that war in Syria, which has been raging for seven years, should provide film-makers with subjects to express their beliefs and views. The same goes for events since 2010 in other Arab...

From edgy British indies to family favourites, Anna Smith picks 10 promising films to watch out for in this year’s selection. Puzzle EIFF regular Kelly Macdonald plays a jigsaw genius in character-driven drama that’s opening the festival on Wednesday. Lucid Can lucid...